Repeat after me: Corporations aren't people

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate considered a bill to reverse the Supreme Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby case, where the court found the Affordable Care Act's provisions requiring employers to offer health insurance that includes full contraceptive benefits violated the religious liberty of closely held corporations.

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By Douglas Rooks

seacoastonline.com

By Douglas Rooks

Posted Jul. 20, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By Douglas Rooks

Posted Jul. 20, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate considered a bill to reverse the Supreme Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby case, where the court found the Affordable Care Act's provisions requiring employers to offer health insurance that includes full contraceptive benefits violated the religious liberty of closely held corporations.

The bill fell two votes short of the 60 needed to avert a filibuster, attracting only three Republican votes. Both Maine senators, Angus King and Susan Collins, voted to advance the bill.

Even had the Senate approved, the Republican-controlled House would have blocked it. And if, somehow, both houses approved, there's no reason to believe the high court wouldn't also strike down this measure.

Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Hobby Lobby opinion for the usual 5-4 majority, cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, itself written to overturn another dubious court decision, as dictating the result.

The RFRA, passed nearly unanimously by Congress, was directed against a decision finding that federal drug agents could arrest Native American tribal members who used peyote in religious ceremonies. That case really did violate religious freedom, and it was clever of Alito to cite it.

Many commentators took the bait, deciding there must be something wrong with RFRA because the court used it to decide Hobby Lobby. One especially egregious editorial headline read, "Want someone to blame for Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision? Try Democrats."

Sorry, the fact that Democrats had congressional majorities in 1993 is irrelevant. This was an overwhelming consensus of both parties.

No, the problem with Hobby Lobby has little to do with the RFRA, intended to protect individual rights. The problem with this decision, as with the equally notorious Citizens United of 2010, was the court's incredible idea that corporations have not only commercial rights, but the full range of citizen rights, including freedom of speech, assembly and religion.

In a courageous moment during his State of the Union address a few weeks after the Citizens United decision, President Obama called out the Supreme Court justices sitting before him, saying, "I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests ...; they should be decided by the American people."

Nothing suggests these five judges will ever listen. Corporations now can spend unlimited money to influence elections, and also ignore other federal laws that offend the convictions of their owners, even if — as with Hobby Lobby — 15,000 employees will have their rights infringed.

It's not a stretch to believe that the Supreme Court could now allow corporations to sue journalists for libel, or require employees to carry firearms, based on the individual right — also established by this court — to keep and bear arms.

The court has perverted the 19th century "legal fiction" that, in commercial transactions, corporations can be considered "persons" to put them on an equal plane concerning contract and liability law.

The idea that corporations could also be endowed with other inalienable rights would have struck the founders of this nation as absurd — and it should strike us the same way.

Maine's Legislature resoundingly endorsed a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, along with 14 other states and hundreds of towns and cities. Congress won't get much done this year, but when it returns in January, this amendment should be top priority.

Not only do we need to reclaim public control of elections, but we also must make it clear companies can't discriminate against employees in offering health care benefits, and counter whatever other new corporate "rights" the Supreme Court dreams up.

Yes, it's difficult to amend the Constitution and, no, it probably won't happen on the first ballot. And when it does pass Congress, there will be legislative battles to ensure that the necessary number of states — 38 — ratify an amendment to end this form of corporate "personhood."

When the Supreme Court decided, 5-4, to award the presidency to George W. Bush without a full recount in Florida, it declared Bush v. Gore shouldn't be a precedent — as if a decision this consequential could somehow not be precedent.

The court is using the same magical thinking to create new corporate rights that no one else imagined existed, then asserting they're "narrow," just to achieve their desired result.

Only a constitutional amendment to restore true equality under the law for all citizens can redress these wrongs. There is work here for everyone from churches and civic groups to the League of Women Voters and Planned Parenthood.

It will be hard work, and long, but in the face of a Supreme Court that's abandoned the quest for equal justice under the law, we must start now.

Douglas Rooks is a former daily and weekly newspaper editor who has covered the State House for 29 years. He can be reached at drooks@tds.net.